“There’s no way we’re going to eradicate this” virus, said Anthony Fauci (File)
Washington:
Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday that despite rising cases and record-high Covid-19 hospitalizations, the United States is approaching the “threshold” of infection to live with the coronavirus.
Speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the top US scientist said that eliminating COVID was unrealistic and “Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented ability to power, will eventually find just about everyone.”
“There’s no way we’re going to eradicate this” virus, he said, given its infectivity, its tendency to mutate into new forms and the large pool of unvaccinated people.
Keeping up to date with your vaccines remains well protected against serious consequences, but vaccine efficacy against infection has fallen.
But “as the omicron goes up and down,” the country will hopefully enter a new phase “where (d) there will be adequate protection in the community, there will be enough drugs available so that when someone becomes infected and is in a high-risk group, It would be much easier to treat that person,” Fauci said.
“When we get there, that infection is there, and we may be on the threshold of that right now,” he said, adding that the country is currently recording about one million infections a day, about 150,000 people. With more than 1,200 daily deaths in hospital, “we’re not at that point.”
Official data showed that there are currently 145,982 Covid hospitalisations, even though a significant percentage are considered “in hospital” with the “illness” due to it.
Earlier, the 81-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases slammed vaccine skeptic Republican Senator Rand Paul for perpetuating the “madness” in unusually emotional Congressional testimony and the “lunatics” plaguing his family. Reprimanded.
Top officials to President Joe Biden, his chief medical adviser Fauci, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Valensky and executive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Janet Woodcock to testify before the Senate about the pandemic was called.
While many fellow lawmakers focused their questions on a lack of adequate testing and confusing new guidelines on how infected people should end their isolation, Paul, who has railed against vaccine mandates and denied vaccination Hai, said Fauci was personally responsible for the deaths.
Paul blames Fauci for the hundreds of thousands of deaths that have occurred since Biden took office – although most of those deaths were unvaccinated and health officials, including Fauci, have consistently advocated for vaccines.
‘Ignites the crazy’
Fauci replied, “You attack me personally and you don’t even have a shred of evidence to say what you say.”
“Suddenly who instigates lunatics there and I am in danger of my life, my family and my children are harassed by obscene phone calls.”
Fauci recalled that in late December, a man armed with an AR-15 assault weapon and several rounds of ammunition was arrested on his way from California to the capital, Washington.
The man said he wanted to kill Fauci, because what he said was blood on the hands of the scientists.
Fauci then pulled out a printout from Paul’s website that featured a “Fire Dr. Fauci” banner next to an invitation to donate to the Republican’s campaign.
Although Omicron causes severe cases at a lower rate than Delta, it is reaching more people due to its high transmissibility.
As of December 27, age-adjusted vaccine efficacy against hospitalization was 92 percent, according to New York state data.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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